The article explores historical aspects of integral healthcare for adolescents in the state of São Paulo, particularly in regard to the implementation of pioneering services and programs. Against the backdrop of Brazil's social and political context during this period, it contextualizes the challenges, clashes, and difficulties that arose within the institutions involved in developing this field, from the perspectives of clinical medicine and of collective health. Grounded on documental material, the study re-examines the construction of groups of expertise and of the field of adolescent health care as part of the dialectical interplay between the construction of a new area of medical practice based on clinical work and a field of knowledge and practices in collective health based on integral health care of an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral nature.
adolescent health; history; collective health; adolescent medicine